16 comments:

Whats ridiculous? When it lands in Los Angeles,to get it to the Aero Museum it will have to be towed through miles of Los Angeles streets. The city then decided to make clearance by clearcutting over 500 large and old street tree's! .No trimming..all out destruction with plans to "replant" saplings for the lost flowering Jacaranda 's and green Ficus and other beautiful trees.Could the now retired space plane have been slightly disassembled? No answer from NASA or the L.A. mayors office.Just a disgrace.S

Two weeks ago, The Times published an editorial about the 400-plus trees that are being cut down to make way for the space shuttle's journey from LAX. The editorial backed the move, in part because the California Science Center where the Endeavour will have its new home has pledged to replant with many more trees, as well as provide an arborist to give them a good start for the first couple of years, in part because the museum's officials said that only about 50 trees were any taller than 15 feet--which is a pretty small tree.

But after the editorial was written, after it was too late to change it, the museum emailed an "Updated Fact Sheet" that, among its bits of information, described the situation somewhat differently:

"The vast majority of trees being removed in Los Angeles are small trees less than 15 feet tall or have a trunk diameter at breast height (DBH) less than 12 inches. Fifty-four of the trees to be removed are large trees, five of which will be transplanted."

If you believe that double talk-that's up to you. "Only 50 trees are taller then 15'..and that could include a 150' for all you know. I've been to Los Angeles and its common to see large street tree's..a subtropical climate will do that. And even then, a 12" tree trunk diameter is a good decade or two old.If you love tree's.."replant with young" is pretty lame..I'm sure one large tree is worth more then a neighborhood of saplings.And a plane that is just a giant door block? Why not remove sections?..I'm sure it could be welded back and no changes would be seen..They can do that for a car..pro's would easily handle that job.And finally..I'm glad that you don't see you contradict yourself..as righteous indignation is what was needed to save those tree from total destruction.

According to what I found out, NASA is paying to replant (two trees for every one being torn out).

The problem is that the streets are simply too narrow for the flatbed with the shuttle on it. The wings are fixed. You cannot easily remove them without taking out both sides of the shuttle. It would make it narrower but require an expensive rebuild of the shuttle at the other end.

Cheaper to chop down trees and replant them rather than spend millions to rebuild the shuttle.

Too bad to hear about the trees. I'll put that on Los Angeles. Another reason to dislike LA. On a side note, it flew right over the houses across the street from me when leaving Moffett Field so I was able to snap a few photos. We always get the base fly-overs here in West San Jose.

My favorite memory of the US space program: Watching a small black and white TV set flickering the corner of a school auditorium with the fuzzy images of John Glenn's face as the Mercury Astronaut became the first American to orbit earth back in 1962. About 200 of my fourth and fifth grade friends were transfixed, as we almost could believe we were watching one of those campy sci-fi movies that were so popular at the time. John Glenn was a lot like John F. Kennedy as he was about my dad's age and had all the qualities you'd want in an American hero. He really was the perfect guy to represent the space program: Good looking, personable,smart, enthusiastic, and honest to a fault. They don't make 'em any better today!

I walked over to the GGB toll plaza pavilion, to see the show. It was thrilling. We could first see it, in the distance, flying west, probably over Solano/Sonoma counties. It disappeared behind the hills, and popped out from behind the Marin headlands for a north-to-south fly along the west side of the bridge. It circled the city, and went over the east bay, then turning to go over the Oakland Bay Bridge, the water and OVER the GGB.

I'm sure that it was far above the bridge, but the perspective from the ground made it look as if it went right between the towers.